Title:Rational Drug Design of Antineoplastic Agents Using 3D-QSAR, Cheminformatic, and Virtual Screening Approaches
Volume: 26
Issue: 21
Author(s): Jelica Vucicevic, Katarina Nikolic*John B.O. Mitchell*
Affiliation:
- Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade, Vojvode Stepe 450, 11000 Belgrade,Serbia
- EaStCHEM School of Chemistry and Biomedical Sciences Research Complex, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9ST,United Kingdom
Keywords:
Antineoplastic agents, pharmacophore, QSAR, rational drug design, cheminformatics, virtual screening,
virtual docking.
Abstract:
Background: Computer-Aided Drug Design has strongly accelerated the development
of novel antineoplastic agents by helping in the hit identification, optimization,
and evaluation.
Results: Computational approaches such as cheminformatic search, virtual screening,
pharmacophore modeling, molecular docking and dynamics have been developed and applied
to explain the activity of bioactive molecules, design novel agents, increase the success
rate of drug research, and decrease the total costs of drug discovery. Similarity,
searches and virtual screening are used to identify molecules with an increased probability
to interact with drug targets of interest, while the other computational approaches are applied
for the design and evaluation of molecules with enhanced activity and improved
safety profile.
Conclusion: In this review are described the main in silico techniques used in rational
drug design of antineoplastic agents and presented optimal combinations of computational
methods for design of more efficient antineoplastic drugs.